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Lions and lambs to the slaughter

TNS/Protesters left signs and stuffed animals in front of the Minnesota dental practice of Walter Palmer, who is accused of killing Cecil, a beloved lion, in Zimbabwe.

For bow-hunting an animal in Zimbabwe, Walter Palmer’s family, livelihood and very life are now under threat. The Minnesota dentist has been driven into hiding by a nearly global mob armed with everything short of torches and pitchforks. He’s closed his thriving dental practice in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and has literally closed the door on the world against a torrent of invective ranging from disinterestedly disapproving to imaginatively graphic. Signs outside Palmer’s dental practice ran the gamut from the dubious “We Are Cecil” to the hyperbolic “ROT IN HELL!”

Of course, the media set up camp outside the poor guy’s home and business like the Turks laying siege to Vienna. Reporters flipped perfect hair and flashed perfect smiles from the foot of the Palmer family driveway. Actresses like Mia Farrow even published the Palmer family’s address, extending the cone of malevolence to include Palmer’s wife and two children, who have yet to be accused of anything.

I hunt regularly, although I don’t take trophies. I have no objection to trophy hunting, as long as the remainder of the animal is consumed. All true hunters agree that dragging some animal out of the bush so you can nuke it with a perfectly tuned .375 H&H from the comfort of an air-conditioned Range Rover is the sporting equivalent of fishing in an aquarium — especially if you add the unpardonable sin of leaving the carcass to spoil rather than properly dressing it and disposing of the offal. And all true hunters frown on illegally baiting and taking the animal outside a legal area. But I believe there are legal recourses for that level of criminal behavior. To the best of my recollection, they generally involve fines. If Palmer, who maintains his innocence, did knowingly participate in the illegal harvesting of a regionally popular animal, then he ought to pay for it. The guy coughed up 55 large to play cowboys and lions; I expect he can afford to scrape together a hefty fee to remunerate the Zimbabwean government for its time. God knows they’re strapped for cash in Robert Mugabe’s personal African playground.

But that’s not enough for quite a few members of his sudden chorus of critics. These people want blood — in some cases, quite literally. Disgraced former game show host Piers Morgan declared his hope to “skin (Palmer) alive, cut his head from his neck, and (take) a bunch of photos of us all grinning inanely at his quivering flesh.” A British guy who thinks the 2nd Amendment needs work would like to brutally murder another human being because he killed a fluffy, lovable lion with an adorable little nickname.

And that brings up what I think is an entirely fair question: Have you people lost your bloody minds? Planned Parenthood has killed millions of babies right here in the United States, and they’ve done it on your nickel!**

If the trend of the stomach-churning anti-humanity Planned Parenthood butchers have displayed in the series of videos famously hitting the Web of late continues on the same upward curve, the next one will feature Planned Parenthood honcho enjoying a nice meal of white wine and grilled toddler. The idea that “Cecil the Lion” is eliciting more grief than the children who have fallen victim to Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer-subsidized human butcher shop ought to make you as itchy as it does me. There’s a moral equivalency at work there that gives me the willies.

And if the ongoing holocaust of abortion and baby parts black markets doesn’t sway your sensibilities back into balance, think of it from a scientific perspective. Over 4.4 billion years, Cecil the Lion’s ancestors fought their way through the perils and pitfalls of natural selection to arrive in 2015 as 500-pound, 35 mph-running, razor-sharp claw-swiping, top-of-the-food-chain predators. Palmer’s ancestors spent the same amount of time developing cerebral cortices and opposable thumbs. Humanity wins, because humanity always wins — except when it preys on itself.